CHADE FALLSTAR OCCUPIES a unique niche in the history of the Six Duchies. Although he was never acknowledged, his strong physical resemblance to the Farseers makes it almost certain that he was blood-related to the royal line. Be that as it may, who he was pales in significance compared to what he was. Some have said he was a spy for King Shrewd for decades before the Red-Ship Wars. Others have linked his name to that of Lady Thyme, who almost certainly was a poisoner and thief for the royal family. These beliefs can never be substantiated.
What can be known, without a doubt, was that he emerged into public life following the desertion of Buckkeep by the Pretender, Regal Farseer. He put his services at the beck and call of Lady Patience. She was able to draw on his established network of people throughout the Six Duchies, both to gather information and to distribute resources for the defense of the coastline. There is much evidence to suggest that initially he endeavored to remain a private and secretive figure. His unique appearance made this difficult and he eventually abandoned all attempts. Despite his years, he became something of a hero, a dashing old man, if you will, coming and going from inns and taverns at all hours, eluding and taunting Regal's guardsmen, bringing news and passing funds for the defense of the Coastal Duchies. His exploits made him admired. Always he bade the folk of the Six Duchies to take heart and foretold to them that King Verity and Queen Kettricken would return, to lift from their backs the yokes of taxation and warfare under which they suffered. While a number of songs have been made of his deeds, the most accurate is the song cycle
"Chade Fallstar's Reckoning, " attributed to Queen Kettricken's minstrel, Starling Birdsong.
My memory rebels at recalling those last days in Jhaampe. A bleakness of spirit settled on me, one that remained unchanged by friendship or brandy. I could find no energy, no will to bestir myself. "If fate is some great wave that is going to bear me up and dash me against a wall, regardless of what I choose, why then I choose to do nothing. Let it do with me as it will," I declared grandiosely, if a trifle drunkenly, to the Fool one evening. To this he said nothing. He simply continued sanding the shags into the wolf-puppet's coat. Nighteyes, wakeful but silent, lay at the Fool's feet. When I was drinking he shielded his mind from me and expressed his disgust by ignoring me. Kettle sat in the hearth corner, knitting and alternating between looking disappointed or disapproving. Chade sat in a straight backed chair across the table from me. A cup of tea was before him and his eyes were cold as jade. Needless to say, I was drinking alone, for the third straight night. I was testing to the limits Burrich's theory that while drinking could solve nothing, it could make the unbearable tolerable. It did not seem to be working for me. The more I drank, the less tolerable my situation seemed. And the more intolerable I became to my friends.
The day had brought me more than I could bear. Chade had come to see me finally, to say that Kettricken wished to see me on the morrow. I allowed as I would be there. With a bit of prodding from Chade, I agreed that I would be presentable-washed, shaven, cleanly attired, and sober. None of which I was at that moment. It was a poor time for me to endeavor to match wits or words with Chade, but my judgment was such that I attempted it. I asked bellicose and accusing questions. He answered them calmly. Yes, he had suspected Molly carried my child, and yes, he had urged Burrich to become her protector. Burrich had already been seeing that she had money and shelter; he had been reluctant to share her dwelling, but when Chade had pointed out the dangers to her and the child if anyone else figured out the circumstances, Burrich had agreed. No, he had not told me. Why? Because Molly had coerced Burrich into promising her he would not tell me of her pregnancy. His condition for guarding her as Chade requested was that Chade would also respect that promise. Initially Burrich had hoped I would puzzle out for myself why Molly had disappeared. He had also confided to Chade that as soon as the child was born he would consider himself freed of his promise and would tell me, not that she was pregnant, but that I had a child. Even in my state, I could see that that was about as devious as Burrich had ever managed to be. A part of me appreciated the depth of his friendship that he'd bend his promise that far for me. But when he had gone to tell me of my daughter's birth, he had instead discovered evidence of my death.
He had gone straight to Buck, to leave word with a stonemason there, who passed word to another and so on until Chade came to meet Burrich at the fish-docks. They had both been incredulous. "Burrich could not believe that you had died. I could not understand why you had still been there. I had left word with my watchers, all up and down the river road, for I had been sure you would not flee to Bingtown, but would immediately set out for the Mountains. I had been so sure that despite all you had endured, your heart was true. It was what I told to Burrich that night: that we must leave you alone, to discover for yourself where your loyalty was. I had wagered Burrich that left to your own devices you would be like an arrow released from a bow, flying straight to Verity. That, I think, was what shocked us both the most. That you had died there, and not on the road to your king."
"Well," I declared with a drunkard's elaborate satisfaction, "you were both wrong. You both thought you knew me so well, you both thought you had crafted such a tool as could not defy your purposes. But I did NOT die there! Nor did I go to seek my king. I went to kill Regal. For myself." I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms on my chest. Then sat up abruptly at the uncomfortable pressure on my healing injury. "For myself!" I repeated. "Not for my king or Buck or any of the Six Duchies. For me, I went to kill him. For me."
Chade merely looked at me. But from the hearth corner where Kettle rocked, her old voice rose in complacent satisfaction. "The White Scriptures say, `He shall thirst for the blood of his own kin, and his thirst shall go unslaked. The Catalyst shall hunger for a hearth and children in vain, for his children shall be another's, and another's child his own …. "
"No one can force me to fulfill any such prophecies!" I vowed in a roar. "Who made them, anyway?"
Kettle went on rocking. It was the Fool who answered me. He spoke mildly, without looking up from his work. "I did. In my childhood, in the days of my dreaming. Before I knew you anywhere, save in my dreams."
"You are doomed to fulfill them," Kettle told me gently.
I slammed my cup back onto the table. "Damned if I will!" I shouted. No one jumped or replied. In a terrible instant of crystalline recall, I heard Molly's father's voice from his chimney, corner. "Damn you, girl!" Molly had flinched but ignored him. She had known there was no reasoning with a drunk. "Molly," I moaned soddenly and put my head down on my arms to weep.
After a time, I felt Chade's hands on my shoulders. "Come, boy, this avails you nothing. To bed with you. Tomorrow you must face your queen." There was far more patience in his voice than I deserved, and I suddenly knew the depths of my churlishness.
I rubbed my face on my sleeve and managed to lift my head. I did not resist as he helped me to my feet and steered me toward the cot in the corner. As I sat down on the edge of it, I said quietly, "You knew. You knew all along."
"Knew what?" he asked me tiredly.
"Knew all this about the Catalyst and the White Prophet."
He blew air out through his nose. "I `know nothing of that. I knew something of the writings about them. Recall that things were comparatively settled before your father abdicated. I had many long years after I had taken to my tower, when my king did not require my services for months at a time. I had much time for reading, and many sources for scrolls. So I had encountered some of the foreign tales and writings that deal with a Catalyst and a White Prophet." His voice became milder, as if he'd forgotten the anger in my question.
"It was only after the Fool had come to Buckkeep, and I had quietly discovered that he had a strong interest in such writings, that my own interest was piqued. You yourself once told me that he had referred to you as the Catalyst. So I began to wonder … but in truth, I give all prophecies small credence."
I lay back gingerly. I could almost sleep on my back again. I rolled to my side, kicked off my boots, and dragged a blanket up over me.
"Fitz?"
"What?" I asked Chade grudgingly.
"Kettricken is angry with you. Do not expect her patience tomorrow. But keep in mind that she is not only our queen. She is a woman who has lost a child and been kept in suspense over her husband's fate for over a year, hounded away from her adopted country, only to have trouble dog her steps to her native land. Her father is understandably bitter. He turns a warrior's eyes toward the Six Duchies and Regal, and has no time for quests to search for the brother of his enemy, even if he believed he lived. Kettricken is alone, more grievously alone than you or I can imagine. Find tolerance for the woman. And respect for your queen." He paused uncomfortably. "You will need both tomorrow. I can be of little help to you with her."
I think he went on after that, but I had ceased to listen. Sleep soon dragged me under its waves.
It had been some time since Skill dreams had troubled me. I do not know if my physical weakness had finally banished my dreams of battle, or if my constant guard against Regal's coterie had blocked them from my mind. That night my brief respite ended. The strength of the Skill dream that snatched me from my body was as if a great hand had reached inside me, seized me by the heart, and dragged me out of myself. I was suddenly in another place.
It was a city, in the sense that folk dwelt there in great number. But the folk were unlike any I had ever seen, nor had I ever seen such dwellings. The buildings soared and spiraled to airy heights. The stone of the walls seemed to have flowed into their forms. There were bridges of delicate tracery and gardens that both cascaded down and tendriled up the sides of the structures. There were fountains that danced and others that pooled silently. Everywhere brightly clad people moved through the city, as numerous as ants.
Yet all was silent and still. I sensed the flow of folk, the play of the fountains, the perfume of the unfolding blossoms in the gardens. All was there, but when I turned to behold it, it was gone. The mind could sense the delicate tracery of the bridge but the eye saw only the fallen rubble gone to rust and rot. Frescoed walls had been wind-polished away to roughly plastered bricks. A turn of the head changed a leaping fountain to weedy dust in a cracked basin. The hastening crowd in the market spoke only with the voice of a racing wind heavy with stinging sand. I moved through this ghost of a city, bodiless and seeking, unable to decipher why I was there or what was drawing me. It was neither light nor dark there, neither summer nor winter. I am outside time, I thought, and wondered if this was the ultimate hell of the Fool's philosophy or the final freedom.
I saw at last, far ahead of me, a small figure plodding along one of the vast streets. His head was bowed to the wind and he held his cloak's hem over his mouth and nose as he walked to shield him from the sand laden wind. He was not a part of the ghostly crowd but moved through the rubble, skirting the places where some unrest in the earth had sunken or ridged the paved street. I knew in that instant of sighting him that this was Verity. I knew by the jerk of life I felt in my chest, and knew then that what had pulled me here was the tiny pebble of Verity's Skill that hid still within my own consciousness. I sensed also that the danger to him was extreme. Yet I saw nothing to threaten him. He was at a great distance from me, seen through the hazy shadows of buildings that had been veiled in the ghosts of a market-day crowd. He trudged heavily along, alone and immune to the ghost city, and yet entwined in it. I saw nothing, but danger loomed over him like a giant's shadow.
I hastened after him and in the blinking of an eye was beside him. "Ah," he greeted me. "So you have come at last, Fitz. Welcome." He did not pause as he walked, nor turn his head. Yet I felt a warmth as if he had clasped my hand in greeting, and I felt no need to reply. Instead I saw with his eyes the lure and the danger.
A river flowed ahead. It was not water. It was not glistening stone. It partook of both those things, but was neither. It sliced through the city like a gleaming blade, sliding out of the riven mountain behind us and continuing until it disappeared into a more ancient river of water. Like a seam of coal bared by a cutting tide, or gold veining quartz, it lay exposed on the earth's body. It was magic. Purest ancient magic, inexorable and heedless of men, flowed there. The river of Skill I had so tediously learned to navigate was to this magic as the bouquet of wine is wine. That which I glimpsed with Verity's eyes had a physical existence as concrete as my own. I was immediately drawn to it as a moth is drawn to a candle flame.
It was not just the beauty of that shining flow. The magic filled every one of Verity's senses. The sound of its rushing was musical, a running of notes that kept one waiting and listening, in the certainty that the sound was building to something. The wind carried its scent, elusive and changeable, one moment the edge of lemon blossoms and the next a smoky coiling of spices. I tasted it on every breath, and longed to plunge myself into it. I was suddenly sure that it could quench every appetite I had ever suffered, not just those of my body but the vague yearnings of my soul as well. I longed for my body to be here as well, that I might experience it as completely as Verity did.
Verity paused, lifting his face. He drew in a deep breath, air laden with Skill as fog is laden with moisture. Suddenly I could taste in the back of Verity's throat a hot metallic tang. The longing he had felt for it suddenly became an all-consuming desire. He thirsted for it. When he got to it, he would throw himself on his knees and drink his fill. He would be filled with all the consciousness of the world, he would partake of the whole and become the whole. At last he would know completion.
But Verity himself would cease to exist.
I drew back in fascinated horror. I don't think there is anything more frightening than to encounter the true will for self-destruction. Despite my own attraction to the river, it touched off an anger in me. This was not worthy of Verity. Neither the man nor the prince I had known could be capable of such a cowardly act. I looked at him as if I had never seen him.
And realized how long it had been since I had seen him.
The bright blackness of his eyes had become a dull darkness. The cloak that the wind snapped about him was a rent rag of a thing. The leather of his boots had long ago cracked, the stitches of the seams giving way and gaping open. The steps he took were uncertain, uneven things. Even if the wind had not buffeted him, I doubted his stride would have been steady. His lips were pale and cracked and his flesh had a grayish overtone to it as if the very blood of his body had forsaken it. There had been summers when he Skilled against the Red-Ships to such an extent that the flesh and muscle fell from his body, leaving him a gaunt skeleton of a man with no physical stamina. Now he was a man of stamina alone, ropy muscles stretched on a framework of bones that was scarcely cloaked in flesh at all. He was the embodiment of weary purpose. Only his will kept him upright and moving. Toward the magic flow.
I do not know where I found my own will to resist it. Possibly it was because I had paused and focused myself on Verity for an instant, and seen all the world would lose if he ceased to exist as himself. Whatever the source of my strength, I pitted it against his. I threw myself into his path but he walked through me. There was nothing to me, here. "Verity, please, stop, wait!" I cried and flung myself at him, a furious feather on the wind. I had no effect on him. He didn't even pause.
"Someone has to do it," he said quietly. Three steps later he added, "For a time, I hoped it would not be me. But over and over, I have asked myself, `Who else, then?' " He turned to look at me with those burnt-to-ashes eyes. "No other answer has ever come. It has to be me."
"Verity, stop," I pleaded, but he continued to walk. Not hurrying, not lagging, but simply trudging along the way a man does when he has measured the distance he must go and matched his strength to it. He had the endurance to get there if he walked.
I withdrew a bit, feeling my strength ebbing. For a moment, I feared I would lose him by being drawn back to my sleeping body. Then I realized an equally potent fear. Linked so long, and even now being pulled along after him, I might find myself drowned alongside him in that vein of magic. If I had had a body in that realm, I probably would have seized onto something and held on. As I pleaded with Verity to stop and listen to me, I instead anchored myself in the only other way I could imagine. I reached with my Skill, grasping after those others whose lives touched mine: Molly, my daughter, Chade and the Fool, Burrich and Kettricken. I had no true Skill links with any of them so my grip was a tenuous one at best, lessened by my frantic fear that at any moment Will or Carrod or even Burl might somehow become aware of me. It seemed to me that it slowed Verity. "Please wait," I said again.
"No," he said quietly. "Don't seek to dissuade me, Fitz. It's what I have to do."
I had never thought to measure my Skill-strength against Verity's. I had never imagined we could be opposed to each other. But as I proceeded to batter myself against him, I felt very much like a child kicking and screaming as his father calmly carried him off to bed. Verity not only ignored my attack, I sensed that his will and concentration were elsewhere. He moved implacably on toward the black flow, and my consciousness was borne along with him. Self-preservation lent a frantic new strength to my struggles. I strove to push him away, to drag him back, but it availed me nothing.
But there was a terrible duality to my struggle. I longed for him to win. If he overpowered me and dragged me down with him, then I need take no responsibility for it. I could open myself to that flow of power and be quenched in it. It would be an end to all torments, surcease at last. I was so tired of doubts and guilts, so weary of duties and debts. If Verity carried me into that flow of Skill with him I could finally surrender with no shame.
There came a moment when we stood on the brink of that iridescent flow of power. I stared down at it with his eyes. There was no gradual shore. Instead there was a knife's edge brink where solid earth gave way to a streaming otherness. I stared at it, seeing it as a foreign thing in our world, a warping of our very world's nature. Ponderously Verity lowered himself to one knee. He stared into that black luminescence. I did not know if he hesitated to say farewell to our world, or if he paused to gather his will to destroy himself. My will to resist was suspended. This was a door to an otherness I could not even imagine. Hunger and curiosity drew us closer to the brink.
In the next moment he plunged his hands and forearms into the magic.
I shared that sudden knowledge with him. So I screamed with him as the hot current ate the flesh and muscle from his arms. I swear I felt the acid lick of it across the bared bones of his fingers and wrist and forearm. I knew his pain. Yet it was crowded from his features by the rapturous smile that overwhelmed his face. My link with him was suddenly a clumsy thing that barred me from sensing in full what he felt. I longed to be beside him, to bare my own flesh to that magic river. I shared his conviction that he could end all pain if only he would give in and plunge the rest of himself into the stream. So easy. All he had to do was lean forward a bit and let go. He crouched over the stream on his knees, sweat dripping from his face only to disappear as tiny puffs of steam when it fell into the flow. His head was bowed, and his shoulders moved up and down with the strength of his panting. Then he begged me suddenly, in a tiny voice, "Pull me back."
I had not had the strength to oppose his determination. But when I joined my will to his and together we fought the terrible allure of the power, it was just enough. He was able to draw his forearms and hands free from the stuff, though it felt as if he drew them out of solid stone. It gave him up reluctantly and as he staggered back I sensed in full for a moment what he had shared: There was the oneness of the world flowing there, like a single sweet note drawn purely out. It was not the song of humanity but an older, greater song of vast balances and pure being. Had Verity surrendered to it, it would have ended all his torments.
Instead, he tottered to his feet and turned away from it. He carried his forearms stretched out before him, palms up, the fingers curled into cups as if he begged something. In shape they had not changed. But now arms and fingers gleamed silver with the power that had penetrated and fused with his flesh. As he began to walk away from the stream with the same studied purposefulness with which he had approached it, I felt how his arms and hands burned as if with frostbite.
"I don't understand," I said to him.
"I don't want you to. Not yet." I felt a duality in him. The Skill burned in him like a forge-fire of incredible heat, but the strength of his body was only sufficient to keep him walking. It was effortless for him to shield my mind from the pull of that river now. But for him to move his own body up the path taxed both his flesh and his will. "Fitz. Come to me. Please." It was no Skill order this time, not even the command of a prince, only the plea of a man to another. "I have no coterie, Fitz. Only you. If the coterie that Galen created for me had been true, then I would have more faith that what I must do is possible. Yet not only are they false to me, but they seek to defeat me. They peck at me like birds on a dying buck. I do not think their attacks can destroy me, but I fear they may weaken me enough that I do not succeed. Or worse yet, that they may distract me and succeed in my place. We cannot allow that, boy. You and I are all that stand between them and their triumph. You and I. The Farseers."
I was not there in any physical sense. Yet he smiled at me and lifted one terrible gleaming hand to cup my face. Did he intend what he did? I do not know. The jolt was as powerful as if a warrior had slammed his shield into my face. But not pain. Awareness. Like sunlight bursting through clouds to illuminate a clearing in the forest. Everything suddenly stood out clearly, and I saw all the hidden reasons and purposes for what we did, and I understood with a painful purity of enlightenment why it was necessary I follow the path before me.
Then all was gone, and I dwindled off into blackness. Verity was gone and my understanding with him. But for one brief instant, I had glimpsed the completeness of it. Only I remained now, but my self was so tiny I could only exist if I held on with all my might. So I did.
From a world away I heard Starling cry out in fear, "What's wrong with him?" And Chade replied gruffly, "It's only a seizure, such as he has from time to time. His head, Fool, hold his head or he'll dash his own brains out." Distantly I felt hands gripping and restraining me. I surrendered myself to their care and sank into the darkness. I came to, for a bit, some time later. I recall little of it. The Fool raised my shoulders and steadied my head that I could drink from a cup a concerned Chade held to my lips. The familiar bitterness of elfbark puckered my mouth. I had a glimpse of Kettle standing over me, lips folded in a tight line of disapproval. Starling stood away, her eyes huge as a cornered animal's, not deigning to touch me. "That should bring him round," I heard Chade say as I sank into a deep sleep.
The next morning I arose early despite my pounding head and sought the baths. I slipped out so silently that the Fool did not waken, but Nighteyes arose and ghosted out with me.
Where did you go, last night? he demanded, but I had no answer for him. He sensed my reluctance to think about it. I go to hunt now, he informed me tartly. I advise you to drink but water after this. I assented humbly and he left me at the door of the bathhouse.
Within was the mineral stink of the hot water that bubbled up from the earth. The Mountain folk trapped it in great tanks, and channeled it through pipes to other tubs so that one might choose the heat and depth one wished. I scrubbed myself off in a washing tub, then submerged myself in the hottest water I could stand and tried not to recall the scalding of the Skill on Verity's forearms. I emerged red as a boiled crab. At the cool end of the bath but there, were several mirrors on the wall. I tried not to see my own face as I shaved. It reminded me too vividly of Verity's. Some of the gauntness had left it in the last week or so, but the streak of white at my brow was back and showed even more plainly when I bound my hair back in a warrior's tail. I would not have been surprised to see Verity's handprint on my face, or to find my scar eradicated and my nose straightened, such had been the power of that touch. But Regal's scar on my face stood out pallidly against my steam reddened face. Nothing had improved the broken nose. There was no outward sign of my encounter last night at all. Again and again, my mind circled back to that moment, to that touch of purest power. I fumbled to recall it and almost could. But the absolute experience of it, like pain or pleasure, could not be recalled in full, but only in pale memory. I knew I had experienced something extraordinary. The pleasures of Skilling, which all Skill users were cautioned against, were like a tiny ember compared to the bonfire of knowing, feeling, and being that I had briefly shared last night.
It had changed me. The anger I had been nursing toward Kettricken and Chade was gutted. I could find the emotion still, but I could not bring it back in force. I had briefly seen not only my child but the entire situation from all possible views. There was no malice in their intent, nor even selfishness. They believed in the morality of what they did. I did not. But I could no longer deny entirely the sense of what they sought. It left me feeling soulless. They would take my child away from Molly and me. I could hate what they did, but I could not focus that anger at them.
I shook my head, drawing myself back to the moment. I looked at myself in the mirror, wondering how Kettricken would see me. Did she still see the young man who had dogged Verity's steps and so often served her at court? Or would she look at my scarred face and think she did not know me, that the Fitz she had known was gone? Well, she knew by now how I had gained my scars. My queen should not be surprised. I would let her judge who stood behind those marks.
I braced my nerves, then turned my back to the mirror. I looked over my shoulder. The center of injury in my back reminded me of a sunken red starfish in my flesh. Around it the skin was tight and shiny. I flexed my shoulders and watched the skin tug against the scar. I extended my sword arm and felt the tiny pull of resistance there. Well, no sense worrying about it. I pulled on my shirt.
I returned to the Fool's hut to clothe myself afresh and found to my surprise that he was dressed and ready to accompany me. Clothes were laid out on my cot: a white loose-sleeved shirt of soft warm wool, and dark leggings of a heavier woolen weave. There was a short dark surcoat to match the leggings. He told me that Chade had left them. It was all very simple and plain.
"It suits you," the Fool observed. He himself had dressed much as he did every day, in a woolen robe, but this one was dark blue with embroidery at the sleeves and hem. It was closer to what I had seen the Mountain folk wear. It accentuated his pallor far more than the white one had, and made plainer to my eyes the slight tawniness his skin, eyes, and hair were beginning to possess. His hair was as fine as ever. Left to itself, it still seemed to float freely around his face, but today he was binding it back.
"I did not know Kettricken had summoned you," I observed, to which he grimly replied, "All the more reason to present myself. Chade came to check on you this morning, and was concerned to find you gone. I think he half fears that you have run off with the wolf again. But in case you had not, he left a message for you. Other than those who have been in this hut, no one in Jhaampe has been told your true name. Much as it must surprise you to find that the minstrel had that much discretion. Not even the healer knows who she healed. Remember, you are Tom the shepherd until such time as Queen Kettricken feels she can speak more plainly to you. Understand?"
I sighed. I understood all too well. "I never knew Jhaampe to host intrigue before," I observed.
He chuckled. "You have visited here only briefly before this. Believe me, Jhaampe breeds intrigues every bit as convoluted as Buckkeep did. As strangers here, we are wise to avoid being drawn into them, as much as we can."
"Save for the ones we bring with us," I told him, and he smiled bitterly as he nodded.
The day was bright and crisp. The sky glimpsed overhead through the dark evergreen boughs was an endless blue. A small breeze ran alongside us, rattling dry snow crystals across the frozen tops of the snowbanks. The dry snow squeaked under our boots and the cold roughly kissed my freshly shaven cheeks. From farther off in the village, I could hear the shouts of children at play. Nighteyes pricked his ears to that, but continued to shadow us. The small voices in the distance reminded me of seabirds crying and I suddenly missed the shores of Buck acutely.
"You had a seizure last night," the Fool said quietly. It was not quite a question.
"I know," I said briefly.
"Kettle seemed very distressed by it. She questioned Chade most closely about the herbs he prepared for you. And when they did not rouse you as he had said they would, she went off in her corner. She sat there most of the night, knitting loudly and peering at him disapprovingly. It was a relief to me when they all finally left."
I wondered if Starling had stayed, but did not ask it. I did not even want to know why it mattered to me.
"Who is Kettle?" the Fool asked abruptly.
"Who is Kettle?" I asked, startled.
"I believe I just said that."
"Kettle is …" It suddenly seemed odd that I knew so little about someone I had traveled with so long. "I think she grew up in Buck. And then she traveled, and studied scrolls and prophecies, and returned to seek the White Prophet." I shrugged at the scantiness of my knowledge.
"Tell me. Do you find her … portentous?"
"What?"
"Do you not feel there is something about her, something that …" He shook his head angrily. It was the first time I had ever seen the Fool searching for words. "Sometimes, I feel she is significant. That she is wound up with us. Other times, she seems but a nosy old woman with an unfortunate lack of taste in her choice of companions."
"You mean me," I laughed.
"No. I mean that interfering minstrel."
"Why do you and Starling dislike one another so?" I asked tiredly.
"It is not dislike, dear Fitzy. On my part, it is disinterest. Unfortunately, she cannot conceive of a man who could look at her with no interest in bedding her. She takes my simple dismissal of her as an insult, and strives to make of it some lack or fault in me. Whilst I take offense at her proprietary attitude toward you. She has no true affection for Fitz, you know, only for being able to say she knew FitzChivalry."
I was silent, fearing that what he said was true. And so we came to the palace at Jhaampe. It was as unlike Buckkeep as I could imagine. I have heard it said that the dwellings at Jhaampe owe their origins to the dome-shaped tents some of the nomadic tribes still use. The smaller dwellings were still tent like enough that they did not startle me as the palace still did. The living heart tree that was its centerpole towered immensely above us. Other secondary trees had been patiently contorted over years to form supports for the walls. When this living framework had been established, mats of barkcloth had been draped gracefully over them to form the basis for the smoothly curving walls. Plastered with a sort of clay and then painted in bright colors, the houses would always remind me of tulip buds or mushroom caps. Despite its great size, the palace seemed organic, as if it had sprouted up from the rich soil of the ancient forest that sheltered it.
Size made it a palace. There were no other outward signs, no flags, no royal guards flanking the doors. No one sought to bar our entrance. The Fool opened the carved wood-framed doors of a side entrance, and we went in. I followed him as he threaded his way through a maze of freestanding chambers. Other rooms were on platforms above us, reached by ladders or, for the grander ones, staircases of wood. The walls of the chambers were flimsy things, with some temporary rooms of no more than barkcloth tapestries stretched on frameworks. The inside of the palace was but only slightly warmer than the forest outside. The individual chambers were heated by freestanding braziers in the winter.
I followed the Fool to a chamber whose outer walls were decorated with delicate illustrations of waterbirds. This was a more permanent room, with sliding wooden doors likewise carved with birds. I could hear the notes of Starling's harp from within and the murmur of low voices. He tapped at the door, waited briefly, and then slid it open to admit us. Kettricken was within, and the Fool's friend Jofron and several other people I did not recognize. Starling sat on a low bench to one side, playing softly while Kettricken and the others embroidered a quilt on a frame that almost filled the room. A bright garden of flowers was being created on the quilt top. Chade sat not far from Starling. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark leggings with a long wool vest, gaily embroidered, over the shirt. His hair was pulled back in a gray warrior's tail, with the leather band on his brow bearing the buck sigil. He looked decades younger than he had at Buckkeep. They spoke together more softly than the music.
Kettricken looked up, needle in hand, and greeted us calmly. She introduced me to the others as Tom, and politely asked if I were recovering well from my injury. I told her I was, and she bade me be seated and rest myself a bit. The Fool circled the quilt, complimented Jofron on her stitchery, and when she invited him, he took a place beside her. He took up a needle and floss, threaded it, and began adding butterflies of his own invention to one corner of the quilt while he and Jofron talked softly of gardens they had known. He seemed very at ease. I felt at a loss, sitting idly in a room full of quietly occupied people. I waited for Kettricken to speak to me, but she went on with her work. Starling's eyes met mine and she smiled but stiffly. Chade avoided my glance, looking past me as if we were strangers.
There was conversation in the room, but it was soft and intermittent, mostly requests for a skein of thread to be passed, or comments on each other's work. Starling played the old familiar Buck ballads, but wordlessly. No one spoke to me or paid me any mind. I waited.
After a time, I began to wonder if it was a subtle form of punishment. I tried to remain relaxed, but tension repeatedly built up in me. Every few minutes I would remember to unclench my jaws and loosen my shoulders. It took some time for me to see a similar anxiety in Kettricken. I had spent many hours attending my lady in Buckkeep when she had first come to court. I had seen her lethargic at her needlework, or lively in her garden, but now she sewed furiously, as if the fate of the Six Duchies depended on her completing this quilt. She was thinner than I recalled, the bones and planes of her face showing more plainly. Her hair, a year after she had cut it to mourn Verity, was still too short for her to confine it well. The pale strands of it constantly crept forward. There were lines in her face, around her eyes and mouth, and she frequently chewed on her lips, a thing I had never seen her do before.
The morning seemed to drag on, but finally one of the young men sat up straight, then stretched and declared his eyes were getting too weary for him to do any more today. He asked the woman at his side if she had a mind to hunt with him today, and she readily agreed. As if this were some sort of signal, the others began to rise and stretch and make their farewells to Kettricken. I was struck at their familiarity with her, until I recalled that here she was not regarded as Queen, but as eventual Sacrifice to the Mountains. Her role among her own folk would never be seen as that of ruler, but as guide and coordinator. Her father King Eyod was known amongst his own folk as the Sacrifice, and was expected to be ever and always unselfishly available to his folk to help in any way they might require. It was a position that was both less regal than that of Buck royalty, and more beloved. I wondered idly if it might not have suited Verity more to have come here and been Kettricken's consort.
"FitzChivalry."
I looked up to Kettricken's command. Only she, I, Starling, Chade, and the Fool remained in the room. I almost looked to Chade for direction. But his eyes had excluded me earlier. I sensed I was on my own here. The tone of Kettricken's voice made this a formal interview. I stood straight, and then managed a rather stiff bow. "My queen, you summoned me."
"Explain yourself."
The wind outside was warmer than her voice. I glanced up at her eyes. Blue ice. I lowered my gaze and took a breath. "Shall I report, my queen?"
"If it will explain your failures, do so." That startled me. My eyes flew to hers, but though our glances met, there was no meeting. All the girl in Kettricken had burned away, as the impurities are burned and beaten from iron ore in a foundry. With it seemed to have gone any feeling for her husband's bastard nephew. She sat before me as ruler and judge, not friend. I had not expected to feel that loss so keenly.
Despite my better judgment, I let ice creep into my own voice. "I shall submit to my queen's judgment on that," I offered.
She was merciless. She had me start not with my own death, but days before that, when we had first begun plotting to whisk King Shrewd secretly from Buckkeep and Regal's reach. I stood before her, and had to admit that the Coastal Dukes had approached me with the offer of recognizing me as King-in-Waiting rather than Regal. Worse, I had to tell her that although I had refused that, I had promised to stand with them, assuming the command of Buckkeep Castle and the protection of Buck's coast. Chade had once warned me that it was as close to treason as made no difference. But I was tired to death of all my secrets, and I relentlessly bared them. More than once I wished Starling were not in the room, for I dreaded hearing my own words made into a song denouncing me. But if my queen deemed her worthy of confidence, it was not my place to question it.
So on I went, down the weary track of days. For the first time, she heard from me how King Shrewd had died in my arms, and how I had hunted down and killed both Serene and Justin in the Great Hall before everyone. When it came to my days in Regal's dungeon, she had no pity on me. "He had me beaten and starved, and I would have perished there if I had not feigned death," I said. It was not good enough for her.
No one, not even Burrich, had known a full telling of those days. I steeled myself and launched into it. After a time, my voice began to shake. I faltered in my telling. Then I looked past her at the wall, took a breath, and went on. I glanced at her once, to find her gone white as ice. I stopped thinking of the events behind my words. I heard my own voice dispassionately relating all that had happened. I heard Kettricken draw in her breath when I spoke of Skilling to Verity from my cell. Other than that, there was not a sound in the room. Once my eyes wandered to Chade. I found him sitting, deathly still, his jaw set as if he endured some torment of his own.
I forged my way on through the story, telling without judgment of my own resurrection by Burrich and Chade, of the Wit magic that made it possible and of the days that followed. I told of our angry parting, of my journeys in detail, of the times when I could sense Verity and the brief joinings we shared, of my attempt on Regal's life, and even of how Verity had unwittingly implanted into my soul his command to come to him. On and on, my voice getting huskier as my throat and mouth dried with the telling. I did not pause nor rest until I had finished telling her of my final staggering trek into Jhaampe. And when at last my full tale of days was told out to her, I continued to stand, emptied and weary. Some people say there is a relief in the sharing of cares and pains. To me there was no catharsis, only an unearthing of rotting corpses of memories, a baring of still suppurating wounds. After a time of silence, I found the cruelty to ask, "Does my account excuse my failures, my queen?"
But if I had thought to rend her, I failed there also. "You make no mention of your daughter, FitzChivalry."
It was true. I had not made mention of Molly and the child.
Fear sliced through me like a cold blade. "I had not thought of her as pertaining to my report."
"She obviously must," Queen Kettricken said implacably. I forced myself to look at her. She clasped her hands before her. Did they tremble, did she feel any remorse for what she said next? I could not tell. "Given her lineage, she much more than `pertains' to this discussion. Ideally, she should be here, where we could guarantee a measure of safety to the Farseer heir."
I imposed calm on my voice. "My queen, you are mistaken in naming her so. Neither I nor she have any legitimate claim to the throne. We are both illegitimate."
Kettricken was shaking her head. "We do not consider what is or is not between you and her mother. We consider only her bloodline. Irregardless of what you may claim for her, her lineage will claim her. I am childless." Until I heard her speak that word aloud, I did not grasp what her depth of pain was. A few moments ago, I had thought her heartless. Now I wondered if she was completely sane anymore. Such was the grief and despair that one word conveyed. She forced herself on. "There must be an heir to the Farseer throne. Chade has advised me that alone I cannot rally the people to protect themselves. I am too foreign to their eyes still. But no matter how they see me, I remain their queen. I have a duty to do. I must find a way to unite the Six Duchies and repulse the invaders from our shores. To do that, they must have a leader. I had thought to offer you, but he has said that they will not accept you either. That matter of your supposed death and use of Beast magic is too big an obstacle. That being so, there remains only your child of the Farseer line. Regal has proven false to his own blood. She, then, must be Sacrifice for our people. They will rally to her."
I dared to speak. "She is only an infant, my queen. How can she … "
"She is a symbol. It is all the people will require of her right now, that she exist. Later, she will be their queen in truth."
I felt as if she had knocked the wind from me. She spoke on. "I shall be sending Chade to fetch her here, where she maybe kept safe and properly educated as she grows." She sighed. "I would like her mother to be with her. Unfortunately, we must present the child as mine, somehow. How I hate such deceptions. But Chade has convinced me of the necessity. I hope he will also be able to convince your daughter's mother." More to herself, she added, "We shall have to say that we said my child was stillborn to make Regal believe there was no heir to threaten. My poor little son. His people will never even know he was born. And that, I suppose, is how he is Sacrifice for them."
I found myself looking at Kettricken closely, and finding there remained very little of the Queen I had known at Buckkeep. I hated what she was saying; it outraged me. Yet my voice was gentle as I asked, "Why is any of this necessary, my queen? King Verity lives. I shall find him and do all I can to return him to you. Together, you shall rule at Buckkeep, and your children after you."
"Shall he? Will we? Will they?" Almost she shook her head in denial. "It may be, FitzChivalry. But for too long I put my faith in believing that things would turn out as they should. I will not fall prey to those expectations again. Some things must be made certain before further risks can be taken. An heir to the Farseer line must be assured." She met my eyes calmly. "I have made up the declaration and given a copy to Chade, with another to be kept safely here. Your child is heir to the throne, FitzChivalry."
I had been keeping my soul intact with a tiny hope for so long. For so many months, I had lured myself along with the idea that when all was over and done, I could somehow go back to Molly and win again her love, that I could claim my daughter as my own. Other men might dream of high honors or riches or deeds of valor sung by minstrels. I wanted to come to a small cot as light faded, to sit in a chair by a fire, my back aching from work, my hands rough with toil, and hold a little girl in my lap while a woman who loved me told me of her day. Of all the things I had ever had to give up simply by virtue of the blood I carried, that was the dearest. Must I now surrender that? Must I become to Molly forever the man who had lied to her, who had left her with child and never returned, and then caused that child to be stolen from her as well?
I had not meant to speak aloud. I did not realize I had until the Queen replied. "That is what it is to be Sacrifice, FitzChivalry. Nothing can be held back for oneself. Nothing."
"I will not acknowledge her, then." The words burned my tongue to speak them. "I will not claim her as mine."
"You need not, for I shall claim her as mine. No doubt she will carry the Farseer looks. Your blood is strong. For our purposes, it is sufficient that I know the child is yours. You have already acknowledged that to Starling the minstrel. To her you said you had fathered a child with Molly, a candlemaker from Buckkeep Town. In all of the Six Duchies, the witness of a minstrel is recognized by law. She has already set her hand to the document, with her oath that she knows the child to be a true Farseer. FitzChivalry," she went on, and her voice was almost kind, though my ears rang to hear her words and I near reeled where I stood. "No one can escape fate. Not you, nor your daughter. Step back and see this is why she came to be. When all circumstances conspired to deny the Farseer line an heir, somehow one was yet made. By you. Accept, and endure."
They were the wrong words. She might have been raised to them, but I had been told, "The fight is not over until you have won it." I lifted my eyes and looked around at them all. I don't know what they saw on my face but their faces became still. "I can find Verity," I said quietly. "And I will."
They were silent.
"You want your king," I said to Kettricken. I waited until I saw assent in her face.
"I want my child," I said quietly.
"What are you saying?" Kettricken demanded coldly.
"I am saying that I want the same things you do. I wish to be with the one I love, to raise our child with her." I met her eyes. "Tell me I can have that. It is all I have ever wanted."
She met my eyes squarely. "I cannot make you that promise, FitzChivalry. She is too important for simple love to claim her."
The words struck me as both utterly absurd and completely true. I bowed my head in what was not assent. I stared a hole into the floor, trying to find other choices, other ways.
"I know what you will say next," Kettricken said bitterly. "That if I claim your child for the throne, you will not help me find Verity. I have considered long and well, knowing that this will sever me from your help. I am prepared to seek him out on my own. I have the map. Somehow, I shall …"
"Kettricken." I cut into her speech with her name said quietly, bereft of her title. I had not meant to. I saw it startled her. I found myself slowly shaking my head. "You do not understand. Were Molly standing here before me with our daughter, still I would have to seek my king. No matter what is done to me, no matter how I am wronged. Still, I must seek Verity."
My words changed the faces in the room. Chade lifted his head and looked at me with fierce pride shining in his eyes. Kettricken turned aside, blinking at tears. I think she may have felt slightly ashamed. To the Fool, I was once more his Catalyst. In Starling there bloomed the hope that I might still be worthy of a legend.
But in me there was the overriding hunger for the absolute. Verity had shown it to me, in its pure physical form. I would answer my king's Skill-command and serve him as I had vowed. But another call beckoned me now as well. The Skill.